Captain Ballaban was summoned by the Sultan.
"Well, comrade," said Mahomet, familiarly throwing his arm about his
friend, much to the disgust of the Capee Aga, the master of
ceremonies, through whom alone it was the custom of the Sultans to be
approached.
"Well! comrade, I gave a necklace worth a thousand liras to a girl who
pleased me in the harem."
"Happy girl, to have pleased your Majesty. That was better than the
necklace," replied Ballaban.
"Think you so? Let me look you through and through. Think you there is
nothing better in this world than to please the Padishah? Ah! it is
worth a kingdom to hear that from a man like you, Ballaban. Women say
it; but they can do nothing for me. They dissipate my thoughts with
their pleasuring me. They make me weak. I have a mind to abolish the
whole harem. But to have a man, a strong man, a man with a head to
plot for empire and to marshal armies, a man with an arm like thine to
make love to me! Ah, that is glorious, comrade. But let me make no
mistake about it. You love me? Do you really think no gold, no honors,
could give you so much pleasure as pleasing me? Swear it! and by the
throne of Allah! I will swear that you shall share my empire. But to
business!" dropping his voice, and in the instant becoming apparently
forgetful of his enthusiasm for his friend.
"We make a campaign against Belgrade. I must go in person. Yet
Scanderbeg holds out in Albania. It is useless meeting him in his
stronghold. You cannot fight a lion by crawling into his den. He must
be trapped. Work out a plan."
"I have one which may be fruitful," instantly replied Captain
Ballaban.
"Ah! so quick?"
"No, of long hatching, Sire. I made it in my first campaign in Albania
with your royal father. The young Voivode Amesa is nephew to
Scanderbeg. He is restless under the authority of the great general:
has committed some crime which, if known, would bring him to ruin: is
popular with the people of the north."
"Capital!" said Mahomet eagerly. "I see it all. Work it out! Work it
out! He may have anything, if only Scanderbeg can be put out of the
way, and the country be under our suzerainty. Work it out! And the
suzerain revenues shall all be yours; for by the bones of Othman!
there is not a province too great for you if only you can settle
affairs among the Arnaouts.
"And now a gift! I will send you the very queen of the harem."
"My thanks, Padishah, but I----" began Ballaban, when he was cut short
by the Sultan.
"Not a word! not a word! I know you decline to practice the softer
virtues, and prefer to live like a Greek monk. But you must take her.
If you like her not, drown her. But you shall like her. By the dimple
in the chin of Ayesha! she is the most perfect woman in the empire."
"But," interposed Ballaban, "I am a Janizary, and it is not permitted
a Janizary to marry."
"A fig for what is permitted! When the Padishah gives, he grants
permission to enjoy his gifts. Besides, you need not marry. You can
own her; sell her if you don't like her. But you must take her."
"Of what nation is she? Perhaps I could not understand her tongue,"
objected Ballaban.
"So much the better," said Mahomet. "Women are not made to talk. But
this woman is an Arnaout, from Scanderbeg's country."
Captain Ballaban could scarcely believe his ears.
This then is Morsinia! To have her, to save her without breach of
loyalty! This was too much. With strangely fluttering heart he
acquiesced, and his thanks were drawn from the bottom of his soul.
The next day he sought Kala Hanoum, and sent by her to Morsinia a gem
enclosed in a pretty casket, with which was a note, reading,--
"It shall be so. Patience for a few days, and our hearts shall be made
glad."
How strangely Fate had planned for him! It must have been Fate; for
only powers supernal could have made the gift of the Padishah so
fitting to his heart. No chance this! His secret passion, unbreathed
to any ear on earth, had been a prayer heard in heaven!
Ballaban was now an undoubting Moslem that he found Kismet on the side
of his inclinations. He belonged to Islâm, the Holy Resignation;
resigned to the will of Providence, since Providence seemed just now
to have resigned itself to his will. He was surprised at the ecstatic
character his piety was taking on. He could have become a dervish:
indeed his head was already whirling with the intoxication of his
prospects.
Captain Ballaban, like a good Moslem, went to the Mosque. He made his
prayer toward the Mihrab; but his eyes and thoughts wandered to the
spot at the side of it, where he had saved the life of Morsinia; and
he thanked Allah with full soul that he had been allowed to save her
for himself.
The Padishah, the following day, bade Ballaban repair to a house in
the city, and be in readiness to receive the gift of heaven and of his
own imperial grace. On reaching the place an elderly woman--the
Koulavous, an inevitable attendant upon marriages--conducted him
through the selamlik and mabeyn to the haremlik of the house. The
bride or slave, as he pleased to take her, rose from the divan to meet
him. Though her thick veil completely enveloped her person, it could
not conceal her superb form and marvellous grace. His hand trembled
with the agitation of his delight as he exercised the authority of a
husband or master, and reverently raised the veil.
He stood as one paralyzed in amazement. She was not Morsinia. She was
Elissa!
He dropped the veil.
Strange spirits seemed to breathe themselves in succession through his
frame.
First came the demon of disappointment, checking his blood, stifling
him. Not that any other mortal knew of his shattered hopes; but it was
enough that he knew them. And with the consciousness of defeat, a
horrible chagrin bit and tore his heart, as if it had been some dragon
with teeth and claws.
Then came the demon of rage; wild rage; wanting to howl out its fury.
He might have smitten the veiled form, had not the latter, overcome by
her bewilderment and the scorn of him she supposed to have been a
lover, already fallen fainting at his feet.
Then rose in Ballaban's breast the demon of vengeance against the
Sultan. Had Mahomet been present he surely had felt the steel of the
outraged man. Only the habit of self-control and quiet review of his
own passions prevented his seeking the Padishah, and taking instant
vengeance in his blood.
Then there came into him a great demon of impiety, and breathed a
curse against Allah himself through his lips.
But finally a new spirit hissed into his ears. It was Nemesis. He felt
that this was the moment when a just retribution had returned upon
himself. For he well knew the face that lay weeping beneath the heap
of bejewelled lace and silk. It was that of the Dodola, whom he had
flung into the arms of the Albanian Voivode Amesa when he was awaiting
the embrace of some more princely maiden. And now the sarcasm of fate
had thrown her into his arms.
"Allah! Thou wast even with me this time," he confessed back of his
clenched teeth.
"But doubtless," he thought, "it was through the information I gave to
the Aga that this girl has been stolen away from Amesa."
"Would that heaven rid me of her so easily!" he muttered. "Yet that is
easy; thanks to our Moslem law, which says, 'Thou mayest either retain
thy wife with humanity or dismiss her with kindness.'[101] Yet I
cannot dismiss her with kindness. She can not go back to the royal
harem. If I dismiss her I harm her, and Allah's curse will be fatal
if I wrong this creature again--to say nothing of the Padishah's if I
throw away his gift. I must keep her. Well! Bacaloum! Bacaloum! It is
not so bad a thing after all to have a woman like that for one's
slave; for a wife without one's heart is but a slave. Well!" He raised
the veil again from the now sitting woman.
The mutually stupid gaze carried them both through several years which
had passed since they had parted at Amesa's castle.
Elissa was easily induced to tell her story. Assuming that it might be
already known to her new lord, she gave it correctly; and therefore it
differed substantially from that she had told to Morsinia. She had
been but a few days in Amesa's home when he discovered that she was
not the person he had presumed her to be. In an outburst of rage he
would have taken her life, but was led by an old priest to adopt a
more merciful method of ridding himself of her. To have returned her
to the village above the Skadar would have filled the country with the
scandal, and made Amesa the laughing stock of all. She was therefore
sent within the Turkish lines, with the certainty of finding her way
to some far-distant country. Her beauty saved her from a common fate,
and she was sent as a gift to the young Padishah by an old general,
into whose hands she had fallen.
Ballaban assured the woman of his protection, and also that the time
would come when he would compensate her for any grief she had endured
through his fault. In the meantime she was retained in the luxurious
comfort of her new abode.
FOOTNOTE:
[101] Koran, Chap. II.